The Politics of the So-Called “Arab Winter”

If the Arab spring turns into an “Arab winter,” as Romney put it, and tumult spreads across the region, a backlash could certainly build against Obama’s handling of the uprising, leaving Romney to profit politically.

There have been multiple uprisings around the region, and Obama’s handling of them has varied from country to country. It would make things much easier to analyze if there were one uprising happening and just one set of U.S. responses to judge, but that isn’t the case. Let’s quickly review what has happened, what the U.S. role has been, and whether the public has much interest in the uprisings.

In Tunisia, where the first successful uprising occurred, Obama’s response has been a fairly hands-off, sympathetic one. The U.S. wasn’t going to do anything to prop up Ben Ali, but it wasn’t going to do much in support of the protesters, either. This position of “not taking sides” was criticized by those in the U.S. eager to have the administration throw our full support to the protesters, but most Americans seem not to have noticed or cared one way or the other.

The U.S. has obviously been more involved in Libya, which I still believe was a mistake as far as U.S. interests were concerned. That intervention has had significant destabilizing effects in the region, most especially in nearby Mali. Almost no one is paying much attention to the war’s effects on Mali. Most Americans didn’t want to intervene in Libya, but a slight majority supported the war once it began. The war began as one of the least popular military actions in recent decades, but because there were no American casualties and no prolonged U.S. military role in Libya it never became a deeply unpopular conflict. The U.S./NATO involvement in Libya’s fighting ended last year, and there does not appear to be any intention to send more Americans to Libya except for securing U.S. installations in the country. Had it not been for the attack on the consulate, the vast majority of Americans would have continued to ignore ongoing insecurity and violence in Libya just as they have done for the last year.

As for Egypt, Washington accepted Mubarak’s more or less unavoidable overthrow after two weeks of protests, tolerated the SCAF coup government for a year, and apparently did not interfere with the election of a president from the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S. acquiesced in Bahrain’s crackdown on its protesters, and did the same when the Saudis and the GCC intervened militarily to shore up the Bahraini monarchy. Obama has lent some rhetorical and limited material support tot he Syrian opposition, which hawks deride as far too little, but two-thirds of Americans want nothing to do with Syria’s conflict.

Many Americans may not be happy with Islamist political success in Egypt, and they may deplore the violence in Syria, but I suspect most Americans see these things as reasons to become less involved in the affairs of these countries rather than an invitation for more activism. One thing that has suffered most in the last two years is the illusion that the U.S. has significant control over events in the region. We don’t, and we never had as much control as we thought we did, and it’s mostly not a bad thing.

The most common criticism of the Obama administration’s response to these uprisings has been that it has been “too slow” to lend support to protesters. That has been one of the frequent charges from the Romney campaign and from other leading Republican hawks. However, if these uprisings are gradually leading to a so-called “Arab winter,” a reluctance to back protest movements won’t be perceived as a liability. Despite their best efforts to have things both ways, Republicans cannot coherently attack Obama for being insufficiently supportive of protests and overly supportive of majoritarian Islamist movements. Democratists want to keep pretending that they can advocate for popular government while still rejecting the empowerment of Islamist parties, but this isn’t tenable. They can’t fault Obama for abandoning the “freedom agenda” on the one hand (which he did) and then for being too much in favor of it (which he hasn’t been). Democracy promotion is the public’s lowest foreign policy priority, so it seems unlikely that American disillusionment with involvement in the Near East could work to the benefit of the candidate urging greater and deeper involvement.

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16 Responses to The Politics of the So-Called “Arab Winter”

Many Americans may not be happy with Islamist political success in Egypt, and they may deplore the violence in Syria, but I suspect most Americans see these things as reasons to become less involved in the affairs of these countries rather than an invitation for more activism.

Determining what you want, versus what you need, and what you can afford and can do, every intelligent householder anywhere in the world does before taking action. Why can’t we expect our leaders in Washington to do the same?

The most common criticism of the Obama administration’s response to these uprisings has been that it has been “too slow” to lend support to protesters.

Those critics surely developed this wonderful skill–to keep their faces straight. Not that Obama’s people don’t have this same skill.

However, if these uprisings are gradually leading to a so-called “Arab winter,”

For some reason I believe the use of “if” in this context is not justified. The cliche states that it is not if but when and this is the precise definition of the mid to long term trend in the region. When and what–very few people are really ready to answer those questions.

Issue of leadership in D.C. aside, partially this question could be answered this way–mass-media with their agendas. They play a very prominent role and form public opinion, which, in its turn, influences this leadership (or the lack of thereof).

Time out. Obama and Hilary’s coven have desperately tried to militarily intervene in Syria. They( thank you Russia) got stopped at the UN. Obama is an interventionist but not quite a unilateralist. Yet.

That’s almost entirely inaccurate. The resolutions that Russia and China vetoed did not include authorization for any use of force. If they were so desperate to intervene, they would circumvent U.N. all together. Whatever they’re doing covertly and indirectly, they aren’t interested in direct U.S. intervention.

The only thing missing here is this: The GOP is no longer coherent because they’re not defining coherence by actual policy, but rather by total opposition to whatever Obama does.

“Republicans cannot coherently attack Obama for being insufficiently supportive of protests and overly supportive of majoritarian Islamist movements.” Is only true if what you’re thinking about is policy. If you’re thinking about politics, well, what’s policy got to do with it?

Not quite, Mr. Larison. The resolution accepted on Libya did not facially authorize the war the US subsequently waged under its supposed sanction.Based on that duplicity, Russia and China vetoed the resolutions on Syria. There is no certain case the US does not want to intervene militarily in Syria-at least that is what Russia and China have openly and repeatedly stated.

The Libyan resolution authorized “all necessary means,” which was then interpreted by the intervening governments to mean regime change. Once force was authorized, it was practically inevitable that U.S. and Europeans would exceed the boundaries of the resolution.

There was no real opening for military intervention under either of the Syria resolutions. The Indians and others insisted that this be kept out. Russia and China were still angry over what they regarded as Western bad faith on the Libyan resolution, and vetoed them anyway.

What is your point, Mr. Larison? That this Administration was busy at the United Nations looking for a silly piece of paper and not an authorization for “regime change”? They have bellowed for months for regime change!!! Of course, they wanted to militarily intervene. As I repeat….Obama is an interventionist but queasy on a being a unilateralist. His statements clearly reflect that and so do his policies.

My point is that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes, they have said they support Assad’s overthrow, but they don’t seem to be doing very much to bring that about. Obviously Obama is an interventionist. He has supported almost every military intervention in U.S. history. The Russian and Chinese vetoes didn’t prevent an intervention in Syria, because an intervention wasn’t in the cards.

An intervention wasn’t “in the cards” in Libya until the US got the UN resolution—to abuse. I am content to let readers judge who knows what they are talking about between us. Quite content. I hope this exchange will not prejudice further communication on other issues.

There wouldn’t have been an effort to get a resolution on Libya if the US hadn’t decided to intervene. It was the change in the administration’s position that made passage of the resolution possible. Until the administration committed to that policy, it wasn’t happening. Unless similar about-face occurs on Syria, there won’t be Western intervention in Syria, either.

Mr Larison spesaks truth again – thanks for some sane discussion. As for the Copts – they have been persecuted for many years – my kids had copt immigrants in their class 20 yrs ago. And no one in the US protested much then – I doubt they will protest much now. Christians are being persecuted all over the place – it just gets shoved under the rug. Frankly – do you think the Egyptians would even care about US public opinion? It seems to me that this idea that we can do something about everything going on in the world is part of our problem – some things are out of our control.

A serious foreign policy with regards to the middle east would emphasize energy independence – stop sending our wealth to these tribal societies so they can arm and create so much threat. Yet when Obama or even Carter tried to get alternate energies going – they were ridiculed. Cut their money off – then middle east is less of a problem – could Iran afford to develop nuclear capability if they did not have so much oil money? But mention solar,wind geothermal etc in a Republican room and you get laughed at.

Thanks for the comments, and thanks for the question on Yemen. I neglected to mention that, and I should have included it. My impression is that pushing for Saleh to leave was not a bad short-term move, but it hasn’t addressed any of the causes of unrest in Yemen. A more significant problem for the U.S. there is the growing resentment caused by the Yemeni government’s cooperation with U.S. attacks inside Yemen.